Cameo Roles (Was: Lolita's copyright)

Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> ...
> In fact, in Elizabethan times, not only was it common to fashion new
> works from old works, it was considered preferable to do so. The
> following is an excerpt from one of the finest books ever written
> about copyright, Benjamin Kaplan's An Unhurried View of Copyright
> (1966): ...

How about a hypothetical with a slightly different set of facts. Let's say that I write a novel about a group of travelors stuck on a train somewhere. To pass the time, the passengers share some important background story about themselves. And amongst the many tails related is Nabokov's Loliata telling the story from her perspective. And for this hypo. let's say that her story amounted to a cameo appearence in the book, say ~20 pages out of a 400 page novel, and only one of eight or ten stories told.

Next step, still clearly Nabokov's Lolita from the story, but we change the charactor's name. Foul?

--

Cheers,
Robert Joseph Honan
robertus[_at_]harbornet.com
http://www.harbornet.com/folks/honan/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our government is the potent, omnipresent teacher.
For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by example.
Crime is contageous. If the government becomes a
lawbreaker; it invites every man to become a law unto
himself; it invites anarchy.
Justice Brandeis in Olmstead v. US (1928)